Judge Sentences Killer, Age 19, To Electrocution

Barbara Patterson told the judge she was in favor of law and order and the death penalty, but she didn`t want to see her son executed for murder.

``I am a law-abiding citizen, and I do believe in the death penalty. (But) if I was on a jury and he was not my son, I would not recommend it,`` said Patterson, a nurse.

Nevertheless, Broward Circuit Judge Harry Hinckley abided by a jury recommendation on Monday and sentenced her son Scott, a 19-year-old lumber salesman and would-be painter and sculptor, to die in the electric chair.

Defense attorney Harry Gulkin, the papers already typed and in hand, immediately filed for an appeal of Hinckley`s sentence.

``There were mitigating factors,`` Gulkin said. ``He had no prior record. The alcohol in his blood impaired his judgment.``

Gulkin said he expected it would take about a year for the Florida Supreme Court to hear the case.

Patterson stabbed his neighbor, Jean Arseneau, 43, to death June 7 at her home in the 3400 block of East Shore Road, Miramar.

Arseneau, a widow with a 13-year-old son and a 15-year-old daughter, was stabbed more than 30 times.

Patterson, who initially denied murdering the woman and claimed instead that he had struggled with a burglar who did the killing, eventually confessed to police.

He was convicted Sept. 25 of first-degree murder, burglary and sexual battery.

Broward State Attorney Peter LaPorte said a life sentence was not enough to ensure Patterson is kept away from society.

``I can cite you example after example after example,`` LaPorte said, ``where people were sentenced to terms where there was the understanding and hope that they would never see the light of day again and where, after relatively short periods of time, they were released.``